Saturday, December 18, 2010

Character profile for my 3 day marathon book that I'm starting tomorrow

Johnny Sweatpants’ mother was the fattest, ugliest woman who had ever experienced a virginal birth. She was so annoyed about getting knocked up without all the fun that’s involved that she dropped her baby in the Hudson River, where he had fend for himself amongst the sewage. Dating guru, Ross Jefferies, was feeding off the river to meet his daily nutritional value when he found Johnny and took him home, cause, you know, chicks dig babies. Ross adopted Johnny and used him as a babe magnet. When Johnny got older and was no longer cute enough to exploit, his father paid him back for all the pootang he got him by home-schooling him, teaching him everything he knew about tricking beautiful women into bed.

Johnny also had an imaginary friend named Melba Toast until he turned eighteen. Other parents would have been troubled by the length of their friendship, but this did not concern his father. Johnny may have been completely out of his mind, but it was preferable to the trauma that would have accompanied the knowledge that he had no friends. Ross Jefferies did not teach him the social skills needed to make friends. Instead, he taught him how to pick up chicks. And the come on lines that he used on his peers did not make him in-demand as a friend. Instead, the pick-up lines made them beat the shit out of him.

The neighborhood children thought Johnny was a weirdo, hated him, and made fun of him at every opportunity. They referred to him as “Johnny Sweatpants” because he never wore sweatpants. This was peculiar because none of them wore sweatpants either. After finding out the explanation behind his moniker, Johnny wore sweatpants every day. But it was of no use. The neighborhood children kept referring to him by his nickname and beating the shit out of him after he complimented their beautiful blue eyes.

Upon reaching 18, he and Melba Toast agreed to a suicide pact. But while Melba Toast was able to decapitate himself by pulling off his own head, Johnny was only able to give himself a neck ache, which he was able to relieve by applying an ice pack. Then he went into a period of depression due to the loss of his only friend and his inability to do anything right. This ended when he blundered into a pet store one day and bought a thirty pound python named Lloyd. Shortly after, his father told him he needed to get a job so he could afford his own place to live since Johnny was past the legal age. Johnny applied to a temp agency, received his first assignment doing clerical work for a cemetery, and found out he was very skilled with things like knowing his ABCs, taking orders, and kissing ass. Many other temporary assignments followed, and Johnny moved into a crummy apartment that he shared with an immaculately clean psychopath who hadn’t killed yet, but it was inevitable.

Johnny continued to wear sweatpants, except for at work, where it was mandatory to wear khaki pants. Since sweatpants were so comfortable, his biggest challenge at temp assignments was fighting against the urge to pull down his pants and run around the office screaming.

By this time in his life, Johnny was less socially inept, but still pretty bad. At least he could distinguish between how he should interact with the different genders. And although he still hits on women outside of work (which is the only way he knows how to act with them), this sort of behavior stopped at work after a number of sexual harassment suits sent him straight. After this, he only used three phrases when conversing with women in the workplace: yes, no, and I would prefer not to.

And of course, Johnny was still a virgin, and very lonely. He also had the ingrained fear of impregnating a woman who he had never been intimate of and having to face the consequences. He tried the bar scene, but didn’t have much luck, so he took up bank robbery. He figured women would be attracted to him because he thinks bad boys have good luck with women. And the fact that they’re under extreme stress, with a guy in a Richard Nixon mask pointing at their heads, helps a little too. So he’s been at the bank robbery game for years, and hasn’t had much luck finding a woman to have sex with, although it’s been really close. And being a temp worker makes it really easy for him to find the time to cross the border and hang out in Mexico until the heat dies down. He always makes sure to tell his agency whenever he’ll be unavailable.

So with each robbery, he takes a semi-beautiful woman hostage and travels with her down to Mexico, but they usually lose interest in him before he’s able to “become a man” and go back to the States without him. He’s not concerned with the money that he makes from his bank robberies. He uses it for his getaway, to pay off the right people, and to buy delicious sandwiches. He’s fairly well off, but always feels the need to do an honest day’s work when he’s out of danger, so he travels back to the U.S. to temp. It makes him feel better about being a criminal.

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About Me

I wrote It Came from Below the Belt, My Heart Said No, But the Camera Crew Said Yes!, Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, and Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You. I edit a literary journal called Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens. I like cheese. I am lactose intolerant.